Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
2010
Abstract
The purpose of the present paper is to examine the relationship between the use of
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and students performance in
Higher Education. Earlier economic research has failed to provide a clear consensus on
the effect of ICTs' investments on student's achievement.
Our paper aims at summarizing the main findings of the literature and to give two
complementary explanations.
The first one focuses on the indirect effects of ICT on standard explanatory factors. Since
students performance is mainly explained by students characteristics, educational
environment and teachers characteristics, ICT may impact those determinants and
consequently the outcome of education. The differences observed in students
performances are thus more related to the differentiated impact of ICT on standard
explanatory factors.
The second thesis advocates that ICT uses need a change in the organization of the
Higher Education. While ICT equipment and uses rates are growing very fast in the
European Union, the adoption of complementary organizational designs is very slow
and differs from one institution to another. This may explain the observed differences in
students achievement.
This Work is partially funded by the European Commission, eLene-EE project: Creating models for the
efficient use of elearning. Introducing Economics of elearning eLene-EE. European Commission
(EAC/23/05 SE001). General Directorate for Education and Culture. Participants: University of Ume,
CANEGE (University of Nancy 2-Vidoscop, University of Nancy, University of Paris-Sud), UOC, METIDMilano Polithecnic, Maria Curie Sklodowska University (Polish Virtual University). February 2006-July
2008.
*
students
performance,
Higher
Education
Institutions,
Introduction
During the last two decades the higher education institutions have invested heavily in
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). ICT have impacted the university
context, organization and the teaching and learning methods.
One puzzling question is the effective impact of these technologies on students
achievement and on the returns of education. Plethoric academic researches have tried
to answer this question at the theoretical and the empirical levels. They faced two main
difficulties. On one hand, students performance is hard to observe and there is still
confusion about its definition. On the other hand, ICT are evolving technologies and their
effects are difficult to isolate from their environment.
Theres no standard definition for students performance. Standard approach focuses on
achievement and curricula. How students understand the courses and obtain their
degrees or their marks. However, more extensive definition deals with competencies,
skills and attitudes learned through the education experience. The narrow definition
allows the observation of the outcomes of any change in higher education. The more
extensive definition needs a more complex strategy of observation and a focus on the
labour market. The outcomes of education are mainly validated in the labour market.
The relationship between the use of Information and Communication Technologies
(ICT) and students performance in Higher Education is not clear. The literature shows
contradictory results. Earlier economic research has failed to provide a clear consensus
concerning the effect on students achievement.
Starting from this point, the aims of this paper are two-folds: first, we summarize the
main findings of this extensive literature and second, we give two complementary
explanations on the contradictory results. Our first explanation is that most of the
literature has focused on direct effects of ICT while its more appropriate to look at the
indirect effects through the traditional channels. Since students performance is mainly
explained by students characteristics, educational environment and teachers'
characteristics, ICT may impact those determinants and consequently the outcome of
education. The differences observed in the performances of students are thus more
related to the differentiated impact of ICT on the standard determinants.
The second explanatory hypothesis is to suppose that ICT needs a shift in organization.
While ICT equipment and uses rates are growing very fast in the European Union, the
adoption of complementary organizational designs is very slow and differs from one
institution to another. This may explain the observed differences in students
achievement.
2
Our paper is structured as follow: section one surveys the literature on students
performance and the use of ICT, section two explains the impacts of ICT on the
traditional determinants of students performance and finally, section three underlines
the role of organizational change in education on the students performance.
Li et al. (2003) pointed out: First, web-based instruction presents information in a nonlinear style, allowing students to explore new information via browsing and crossreferencing activities. Second, web-based teaching supports active learning processes
emphasized by constructivist theory. Third, web-based education is enhanced
understanding through improved visualization and finally, the convenience, it could be
used any time, at any place.
(c) A need for a clarification and for more appropriate explanations
Fuchs and Woessman (2004) report two hypotheses explaining the mixed results shown
in the literature. The first one run down to the point that everything else equal, ICT
constitute an input in students learning process that should help produce better
learning output. ICT use can enhance learning by making education less dependent on
differing teacher quality and by making education available at home throughout the day.
Authors argue that the use of ICTs can positively infer knowledge to students.
Furthermore, ICT use can help students exploit enormous information possibilities for
schooling purposes and can increase learning through communication.
The second hypothesis combines arguments that:
Actually, everything else is not equal, ICT based instruction induces reallocations,
substituting alternative, possibly more effective forms of instruction. Given a constant
overall instruction time, this may decrease student performance. Also, given that
budgets are not perfectly elastic, the introduction of ICT based instruction can result in a
reallocation of funds in favour of ICTs, possibly substituting more effective instructional
materials.
ICTs can distract learning. This may be particularly salient at home, where computers
may be used mainly to play computer games and Internet access could be source of
distraction because of chat rooms or online games, reducing the time spent in doing
homework or learning. Thus, the impact of the availability of ICTs on student learning
will strongly depend on their specific uses.
ICT-based instruction could restrict the creativity of learner. ICT tend to allow acting
only in a predefined way with limited interactive possibilities. This might reduce
students abilities in terms of problem solving and creativity thinking in predetermined
schemes but not coming up with independent creative solutions by their own.
For a better understanding of the link between students performance and ICT usage, we
suggest two alternative research strategies in the next sections. The first one consists in
examining the impact of ICT on traditional explanatory variables of students
achievement. The students performance depends on other explanatory factors and we
may have a deep impact of ICT on these factors. Thus, differences in the observed
performance depend on the nature and the intensity of these changes. The second
explanation is given by the economic literature concerning of ICT's performances in
economic sectors. In fact, education is a specific sector but can be considered as an
economic sector and the literature of the productivity paradox suggest that
organizational change is the key explanation of ICT performances (Sharpe, 2004).
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However, ICT may impact students motivation. Becker (2000) found that ICT increases
student engagement, which leads to increased amount of time students spend working
outside class time.
the course. They are not constrained by the available time of face to face where their
understanding and participation depend on the number of students. Third, concerning
networks economics, the value of the network depends on the number of its users. Thus,
the number of students may have a positive effect in online courses. This result depends
on the teachers motivation and students characteristics
participation. ICT is transforming the classrooms and focusing the learning more on the
process. Third and related to the two first points, while initial competencies and degrees
of teachers remain important, new skills are needed and students' performance seems
dependant on the ability of teachers to develop these new competencies and skills.
Extended training is needed in this subject in the European Union.
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Has an edit effect in terms of quality of student work and practical examples through
visualisation;
Equalises individual differences and particularly has dramatic effects for students with special
needs;
Facilitates self pacing with increased capacities to deal with individual learning styles as students
can work at the pace and intensity suitable to their needs;
Impacts on resourcebased learning and access to real world information through the Web;
Increases information's reliability and accuracy adding to authenticity of learning tasks, with
realistic and up-to-date information;
Increases student motivation through hands on activity, visual representations and improved
modes of presentation;
Encourages independent learning and individual preferences for process, layout, style and format;
Increases opportunities for classes to evolve and for student experiences to shape outcomes.
Has improved students' quality of work and has given them the confidence to perform enhanced
learning tasks,
Has allowed students to learn independently, which has enabled more work to be completed, and
Has enhanced achievement due to the reinforcement and practice that ICT has afforded.
General Purposes Technologies (GPTs), they need to be specified in order to meet the
needs expressed by students and to be adapted to their local context and constraints
(Antonelli, 2003; Ben Youssef, 2008). A variety of models of usages can be identified
leading to the same outcome. ICTs bring widened possibilities for the learning processes
that are independent from place and space. ICTs also allow more flexible
(asynchronous) and more personalized learning. They are offering new methods of
delivering higher education. Taking advantage of these opportunities need a deep
change in the organization of the higher education system (universities).
Economic literature has shown in the last decade that the technological change, by its
own, does not lead to any change in the economic performance. Among the most popular
explanations of this Paradox - huge investment in ICT without any economic
performance - the complementarity thesis seems to be the most accepted nowadays
(Greenan and Mairesse, 2004). Old methods need old educative technologies and new
technologies need new organizational innovations. Theres an agreement between
researchers that the usage of ICT requires the usage of New Organizational Designs and
a shift organization. Higher Education is not an exception and needs a huge
organizational change.
Organization is defined as the way decision-making units are structured within an
institution (here universities or Higher Education Institutions), the way the decisionmaking power and skills are distributed and the type of information and communication
structures in place. Thus any change in the distribution of power, skills, and information
or in the lines of communication constitutes an organizational change (Sah and Stiglitz,
1986). From an evolutionist perspective (Nelson and Winter, 1982) organizational
change is a change in the routines that the universities operate. The Potential benefits,
implications and challenges of introducing ICT into schools can be very different
depending on the vision and the understanding of the nature of this change, as well as
strategies for its management adopted by the leadership at the school level and beyond.
(UNESCO, 2003)
Hargreaves (1997) and Meighan (1997) argue that merging ICT and education requires
organizational changes at the level of the whole system: in the direction of allowing
more distance-learning or even virtual schooling, thus changing the attitude towards
time, place, curriculum and other connected attributes of the system.
ICTs have a deep impact on classrooms. They add a complexity to a non-linear system.
This complexity needs a huge change in organization. Downes (2001) differentiates
among four levels of use of ICT in the classroom:
Level 1: ICT skills are added into school program through a separate ICT subject, while
teacher practices in subjects remain unchanged;
Level 2: ICT skills are integrated into teachers' daily work with some teachers
pedagogical practices and classroom behaviour remaining the same, while the practices
of others change more radically;
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Few economic studies have tried to examine this dimension in the higher education
sector. Fullan (1999) mentions that reforms failed due to the problem of changes in
collaborative culture among students and between students and teachers. ICTs are
mainly collaborative technologies and interactive ones. Improving the outcomes of the
learning process needs a change in the way students interact. This is not a trivial
dimension. Nowadays several technologies allow co-writing and sharing resources
(Wikis, Blogs). The collaborative and cooperative dimensions of the learning process
are fundamental and an organizational change is needed in order to explore this
dimension. Collaboration is also one of the most seeked skills in the job market. By
enhancing the learning of this kind of skills, Higher Education provides the job market
with better workers.
ii.
ICT allows personalized learning and organization must follow this trend.
ICT are based on individual access, Personal mobile phone, Personal computer
besides, the personalization of the Web is the new trend. This fact implies that the needs
and the competencies of students are quiet different and since ICT allows to have a oneby-one learning, a more personalized learning may constitutes the future trend of
Higher Education. Better achievement of students is easier to obtain since the learning is
personalized and customized. However, this implies a huge change in the format, in the
organization of the classrooms and in the competencies and the availability of teachers.
The differences observed in the impact of ICT on the performances of students may be
explained by this fact. Wherever the introduction of ICT is associated with a
personalized service for students, the performances increase.
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iii.
Hargreaves (1997) and Meighan (1997) argue that the potential impact of the
implementation of ICTs in high education will not be observable without organizational
changes at the level of the whole system. Universities must act as a learning
organization. ICTs imply more interactions among all the actors. The institution is then
developing a collective learning by changing its rules and routines. But the main change
is that innovation becomes in the heart of the learning process. Teachers and Students
are exploring the new possibilities given by these technologies and constructing
capabilities concerning learning through ICT. Building absorptive capabilities
concerning ICT usage in education becomes a discriminatory element among
universities. The attitudes toward time, place, curriculum and other connected
attributes of the system on a systemic level are changing.
iv.
The impact of ICT on the learning process seems to be more important and requires
more than looking only to curricula. Improved student outcomes, with regard to:
Motivation, enjoying learning; Self-esteem; ICT Skills; Collaborative skills; Subjectknowledge; Information handling skills; meta-cognitive skills are observed.
In the European Higher Institutions, while students and teachers seem to be using more
and more intensively the new available technologies, organizational designs are
changing slowly. The lack of a strategy regarding organizational change, as several
studies have showed, leads to a weak impact of the use of ICT on students' performance.
Flexibility of the trainings
The ICT are supposed to exploit the flexibility of the trainings. The rythm of study, the
allocation of time and the availability of teachers can allow a better articulation between
private life/professional life (studies) as well as a better allocation of time between the
various uses. This allows a better students' performance in pecuniary terms of profits
and achievement. Another channel would be the quality of the formation. The teaching
supports, the availability of the resources and the variety of the training channels would
change following the introduction of the ICT. This would make it possible to the students
to acquire e-skills and to develop them in the labour market (OECD, 2006). Some go as
far as claiming that the use of the innovating models of training permitted by the
introduction of the ICT would make it possible to the students to carry out a team work,
to share knowledge and to decrease individualism in order to promote the authorized
capital (Lundin and Magnusson, 2003).
Conclusion
This article has tried to summarize the main findings in economic literature concerning
ICT's usage and students achievement. ICT seems to have a deep impact on the process
of learning in higher education by offering new possibilities for learners and teachers.
These possibilities can have an impact on student performances and achievement.
Empirical literature shows contradictory results in this field. Three different arguments
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can be given in order to explain this lack of empirical evidence. First, since ICTs are GPTs
and immature by nature. They need a long process of appropriation and exploration of
their possibilities by the Higher Education Institutions before observing any significant
change. This was the case in other economic sector and its also true in higher education.
Second, for us, we consider the lack of organizational change in high education the main
explanation. While Universities have invested heavily in equipment and at the same time
students and teachers are using more and more these technologies, theres little change
on the organizational side. The adoption of complementary organizational innovations is
the masterpiece of students performances and achievement. Third, returns of education
using ICT are changing. Students are acquiring new skills and new competencies more
collaboration, team building, project management closer to the needs in the job market
and perhaps less performance on curricula. Observing the performances of students
needs to deal more with these topics and less with knowledge of specific topic and
curricula.
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